Guerrero editor questioned about two indigenous Mixtec leaders kidnapped and murdered and Omar Guerrero Solis, a purported field commander of the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) slain in murky circumstances.

As Mexico prepared to mark the twin anniversary of its 1810 War ofIndependence and 1910 Revolution- events ushered in with cries of freedomand justice- a prominent newsman was detained and interrogated because ofan article he wrote.Juan Angulo Osorio, general director and co-founder of the Guerrero dailyEl Sur, was forcibly detained December 29 by six agents of the GuerreroMinisterial Police (PIM) at El Sur’s office in the state capital ofChilpancingo and hustled off to the state attorney general’s office for around of questioning. Before he was let go several hours later, Angulo wasquestioned by state prosecutors Jesus Miranda and Fernando Monreal aboutbloody episodes that rocked Guerrero in 2009.The PIM is headed by Valentin Diaz Reyes, a former military man whocommanded the embattled Delicias division of the Ciudad Juarez municipalpolice before he was appointed the director of the state police force bythe administration of Governor Zeferino Torreblanca last October. Diaz’ssuperior is Albertico Guinto Sierra, the temporary state attorney general.Angulo’s detention arose from a September 3 editorial he authored aboutthe previous month’s assassination of Armando Chavarria, the coordinatorof the Guerrero State Legislature who was widely considered agubernatorial hopeful in upcoming elections. Chavarria had also onceserved as state secretary for the Torreblanca administration, a sensitivepost in which he was privy to matters of internal security.Earlier instructed by the state attorney general’s office to rendertestimony about the editorial, Angulo legally challenged the order on thegrounds of press freedom. Angulo also received protective orders from theGuerrero State Human Rights Commission and the National Human RightsCommission (CNDH), both of which were ignored when the veteran journalistwas detained this week during Mexico’s long holiday season, a time whengovernment activities are largely suspended and the public’s attentionfocused on family and festivities.Arguing he was protected by Articles Six and Seven of the MexicanConstitution, Angulo said after his release he cannot be “bothered by anyauthority due to my writings or what is published in the newspaper forwhich I am director general.”Angulo said he told prosecutors his only relationship with ArmandoChavarria was the latter’s status as a source of information.According to El Sur, Angulo also was asked about Raul Lucas Lucas andManuel Ponce Rosas, two indigenous Mixtec leaders kidnapped and murderednearly one year ago, and Omar Guerrero Solis, a purported field commanderof the Revolutionary Army of the Insurgent People (ERPI) who was reportedslain in murky circumstances last November.“I believe the state attorney general’s office is not obligated to followorders that violate the Constitution of the Republic,” Angulo said, “eventhough these orders come from the state’s governor, who has been the mainone interested in seeing me render legal testimony in a case in which theonly knowledge I have is from my journalistic work.”Pressed by an El Sur reporter, interim State Attorney General Guinto deniedAngulo was detained because of his writings or due to political pressurefrom Governor Torreblanca.“I reiterate that at no moment was he detained because of his journalisticwork or for his articles,” Guinto insisted, stressing that Angulo was notforced to testify or treated badly by officers. Without elaborating,Guerrero’s top law enforcement official added that authorities werepursuing four lines of investigation in the Chavarria murder.Alerted to Angulo’s detention, reporters from different media outlets andhuman rights advocates quickly mobilized outside the state attorneygeneral’s headquarters. Leaders of the PRD, PRI, PT and Convergenciapolitical parties, environmentalists and social activists, joined by theinternational organization Reporters without Borders, all were amongnumerous voices condemning the detention.Ironically, Angulo was detained by an administration headed by a politicalfigure, Zeferino Torreblanca, whose career as a federal congressman,Acapulco mayor and then state governor was greatly boosted by El Sur. Inthe 1980s and 1990s, Torreblanca was widely considered a champion of goodgovernment, human rights and political tolerance.El Sur was in the vanguard of the new critical Mexican press which emergedafter the 1980s, and played a vital regional role in the movement todemocratize Mexico and move it away from a one-party state. Over theyears, the newspaper’s journalists have been the target of telephoned anddirect verbal threats, lawsuits and other forms of intimidation.Members of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), agrouping which ran Torreblanca as their successful gubernatorial candidatein 2005, were among the early supporters of El Sur’s journalisticinitiative. However, El Sur’s editorial line has been highly critical ofmany of Torreblanca’s policies since he assumed the governorship.Nearing the end of his term, Torreblanca’s tenure in office has beencharacterized by extreme bouts of narco-violence, which have reached acrescendo in recent months. Of 1,136 murders registered in Guerrero fromJanuary to mid-October 2009, at least 706 were linked by authorities toorganized crime. Among this year’s victims were three journalists fromdifferent media: Juan Raul Ibarra Ramirez, Juan Carlos Hernandez and JuanDaniel Martinez Gil.Angulo’s detention capped a grim year for the Mexican press. Thirteenjournalists were reported murdered in 2009, and Ciudad Juarez journalistRicardo Chavez Aldana of Radio Canon sought political asylum in the UnitedStates this month after receiving death threats. Chavez was the fourthjournalist to flee Ciudad Juarez within the past 18 months.A recent CNDH report documented steadily rising attacks againstjournalists since 2000, the year of Mexico’s much-heralded democratictransition. In a separate report, the non -governmental Freedom ofExpression Foundation slammed conditions confronted by Mexicanjournalists. Without freedom of expression, warned the foundation’spresident Armando Prida Huerta, journalists have “absolutely nothing.”In the case of El Sur’s Juan Angulo, the CNDH has initiated a complaintagainst the Guerrero state attorney general’s office for violating theright of free expression.Sources: El Sur, December 30 and 31, 2009. Articles by Jesus Saaveda,Daniel Velzaquez, Karenine Trigo Molina, Claudia Venalonzo, Noe AguirreOrozco, and editorial staff. La Jornada (Guerrero edition), December 24and 30, 2009. Articles by Citlal Giles Sanchez and Marlen Castro.Proceso/Apro, December 15 and 30, 2009. Articles by Miguel Cabildo S. andeditorial staff. Cimacnoticias.com, December 22, 2009. CEPET, December 14,2009. Press release. El Universal, October 29, 2009. Article by JuanCervantes.Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border newsCenter for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State UniversityLas Cruces,New MexicoFor a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.ed

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Saturday, January 16, 2010, 9:00am - 3:00pmFalcon Park to Tent City! Phoenix, ArizonaSaturday, January 16 2010 is the National day of action against Joe Arpaio and the 287(g) agreement. Join us and march against the injustices and separation of families caused by the 287(g) and Joe Arpaio. We will be demanding that the Obama administration take direct action on the issues affecting our communities.Start Time: 10:00am/Location: Falcon Park/End Location: Tent City JailOne year after the new presidential administration and Arpaio continues his reign of terror, collaborates with ICE in the jails, and escalated his attacks. In February, 2009 5,000 people took to the streets to demand an end to the racial profiling and out-of-control enforcement of Sheriff Arpaio's department. Join us as we march again to elevate our demands, protect our communities, and stand for human rights.

By Brenda NorrellCensored Newshttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.comIt is interesting that President Obama is vacationing in Hawaii and playing golf, while so much of America is cold and hungry this holiday. Elderly, on small fixed incomes, are finding it harder than ever to buy fuel this winter. Many elderly, like Navajos, still chop wood to heat their homes. When they are sick, who is there to chop wood for them? Who is remembering them this Christmas and New Year?--Censored NewsPine Ridge residents running low on fuel and food Mary GarriganRapid City JournalLloyd Wilcox hauled groceries home on a sled Tuesday to a house without heat, days after a severe winter storm paralyzed the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and left an estimated 800 homes there without propane.Five days after the storm hit on Christmas Eve, reservation residents are still facing unplowed roads, electrical outages, broken water pipes and diminishing supplies of food and fuel.On Tuesday, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Theresa Two Bulls declared a state of emergency for the reservation. Two Bulls and the tribe’s Emergency Management Team conferred Tuesday with representatives from the state Office of Emergency Management and road departments in Fall River, Custer and Haakon counties to coordinate snow removal efforts.Maureen Last Horse agrees that her broken water pipes, impassable road and lack of propane constitute an emergency at her isolated home about 7 miles southwest of Kyle. Read more ...http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_139d544e-f4c8-11de-8d92-001cc4c002e0.html

Reader Comments:

"And the 9 Million this little vacation cost us would buy enough wood for everyone in Navajo land!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"Navajo Reader Comment:"Thank- you Brenda, I know my parents don't have anybody to chop wood for them, and your right when they get sick nobody is there to do it for them, they are alone on a mesa.Aheeh!!"

Monday, December 28, 2009

Pregnant Anti-Mining Activist Assassinated in El SalvadorDemocracy Now!For the second time in a week, a prominent anti-mining activist has been assassinated in El Salvador. On Saturday, thirty-two-year-old Dora “Alicia” Recinos Sorto was shot dead near her home. One of her children was also injured in the shooting. Sorto was an active member of the Cabañas Environment Committee, which has campaigned against the reopening of a gold mine owned by the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Company. [includes rush transcript]http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/29/anti_mining_activists_killed_in_e.Second opponent to Pacific Rim slain this weekby Moira Peters →Free Trade & Gateway ProjectsNearly two years ago, he lost two fingers because he opposed a Canadian-owned gold mine in Cantina Trinidad, El Salvador. Yesterday, Jose Santos Rodriguez lost his wife, some say for the same reason.Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos, 32, was shot and killed yesterday at 3:30 pm when she was returning home from doing laundry in a nearby river. She was eight months pregnant. Her son, who was accompanying her, was shot in the foot.Santos Rodriguez is a farmer and active member of the Environmental Committee of Cabanas (CAC), a citizen group in opposition to Pacific Rim's proposed El Dorado gold mine. In April, 2008, he was attacked by Oscar Menjivar, a neighbour who had relationships with local mayors who supported the mine. In the attack, Menjivar cut off two of Santos Rodriguez' fingers with a machete.According to a press release by Movimiento Unificado Francisco Sánchez-1932 (MUFRAS-32), Sorto Recinos had recently informed MUFRAS-32 that men with rifles had come to her house, looking for her husband. He was not home at the time.The assassination of Sorto Recinos is the second murder this week of an opponent to Pacific Rim's proposed El Dorado mine, and the latest in a string of assassinations of civilian opponents to Canadian mining projects in Latin America.Ramiro Rivera Gomez was shot and killed on December 20, in spite of 24-hour police protection.MUFRAS-32 says the community is most alarmed by the lack of police investigation into these crimes. There have been no arrests for Rivera Gomez' assassination, and the community sees only "the most serious lack of will in discovering the causes of these murders," according to the release.

Hate crimes against African-Americans and the number of hate groups increased in the United States during this decade, according to US statistics. But what of the hate crimes on the US/Mexico border, where white Border Patrol agents kill people of color in cold blood, as was the case with Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, 22, from Morelia, Mexico?

Why is it not a hate crime when white Border Patrol agents and white police officers beat and murder Tohono O’odham, and other people of color, on the backroads near the US/Mexico border?

Why is it not a hate crime when the US federal court prosecutes volunteers for giving water to a dying person on the southern border?

Why is it not a hate crime when the United States kills civilians with drones during rogue assassinations in Iraq or Afghanistan? Why is it not a hate crime when Navajo, Lakota, Tohono O'odham and other Indian women, children and elderly go to bed cold, sick and hungry -- without food, medicine and firewood -- ignored by the United States and their own elected councils?

Television news, especially CNN, can be singled out for the rise of institutionalized racism and nationalism. CNN champions the rights of white victims in mind-numbing repeated broadcasts. When was the last time CNN sought justice for a black, American Indian or Asian missing or murdered child or desperate parent? CNN's chosen victims are more often than not, fair-haired blondes. The people that CNN and other television news focus on to shame and vilify are more often than not people of color.

Television news was responsible for fueling the border xenophobia, which resulted in billions of dollars of profits for Boeing border wall builders and surveillance profiteers. Over the past decade, it was television news, particularly CNN, that fueled global intolerance, racial and religious prejudice toward people from the Middle East. This institutionalized religious prejudice targeted the followers of the Prophet Mohammad. It was primarily CNN that manipulated the facts and swayed public opinion concerning the United States’ oil and opium rich wars in the Middle East.

Instead of calling for the prosecution of Bush and Cheney for war crimes, in violation of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture, television news anchors broadcast Cheney’s book tour.

The newsmakers, including global wire services, treated press releases written by politicians and corporations as facts, fictionalizing the news on issues ranging from the war and the US borders, to uranium mining and power plants on American Indian lands.

Canadian mining companies assassinated Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala and elsewhere. Canadian mining companies, including Barrick Gold and Cameco uranium, targeted Indian lands in the US, and around the world, to poison their land and water with gold and uranium mining. Television news ignored the facts.

What were the most censored news stories in 2009? It was all censored. The media stopped questioning the reasons for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States continued its covert drug operation for opium and other drugs in Afghanistan, issued oil contracts in Iraq in 2009, after smuggling yellowcake out of Iraq for the private company Cameco in Canada in 2008. The news media failed to expose the United States role in the drug violence of northern Mexico, both in trafficking and the demand for drugs. News makers failed to expose the fact that the most brutal torturers in Mexico, the Zetas, were originally trained as US Special Forces.

People of color, considered expendables by the US, continued to be targeted in television commercials and by military recruiters to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war with no real purpose and no possibility of victory. Military recruiters are masters of deceit. The lies of military recruiters seldom become public after enlisted men and women become soldiers. Women, who military recruiters promised would return to their home communities as recruiters, quickly find themselves on the battlefield, fearing they will be raped by their fellow soldiers in the bushes. These reasons, including the purposeless of the war, are among the reasons that the US now has its highest ever rate of suicides in the military.

The number one censored issued in 2009 was the escalation of human rights violations during the Obama administration, including the escalation of the war, continued approval of CIA kidnappings (secret renditions,) repression of the US torture photos, failure to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for war crimes, and the use of drones for assassinations and killing of civilians.

One pivotal turning point occurred late in 2009, according to statements from Native Americans. The Obama administration approved oil drilling in the Arctic. Alaska Natives from the Chukchi Sea were in Copenhagen for the Climate Talks when the Interior announced the decision to devastate the Arctic.

Already, the Obama administration had bailed out the billionaires, the stockholders, bankers and carmakers, leaving homeowners homeless and Native Americans with less than ever. The much-publicized Obama invitation to the White House extended to American Indian leaders, turned out to be an invitation to stand in line to get into the Interior Building, without even a handshake from the president.

There were victories. The Indigenous Environmental Network at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen proved that a dedicated group of people could make a difference, delivering a powerful message for the protection of Mother Earth, to the world. Indigenous voices, including those to halt the Tar Sands in Canada, were carried around the world, by Democracy Now! ABC Nightly News and other media.

The Mohawks at the northern border, stood firm against the oppression of the colonized governments in the US and Canada at the border. In their homelands, Western Shoshone, Navajo, Lakota, Pueblo, Supai, Gwich’in and other Indigenous Peoples stood firm against coal fired power plants, oil drilling, uranium mining and gold mining in their homelands.

There were more victories in desperate times. Ben Carnes, Choctaw, fasted for freedom for Leonard Peltier, outside the White House. Crow Creek Sioux Chairman Brandon Sazue established a solitary stronghold in a snow blizzard of central South Dakota after the IRS seized lands of the economically desperate Indian Nation. Havasupai and Acoma Pueblo hosted gatherings to halt uranium mining in the Southwest. A delegation of Native Americans visited Palestine.

Clan Dyken and friends brought food and chopped wood for Navajos resisting relocation and Peabody Coal mining. Dooda (NO) Desert Rock fought against another coal-fired power plant in their Navajo homeland. Western Shoshone fought to protect sacred Mount Tenabo from Barrick Gold's mining and won a victory in the Ninth Circuit federal court. O’odham struggled against the oppression of the Border Patrol/Homeland Security and their own elected legislative council. Save the Peaks continued to fight to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from snow made from sewage water.

The campaign "No Olympics on Stolen Land," was launched in Canada. The effort received a boost when border officials detained and harassed Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Canada's effort backfired when Goodman was interrogated as to whether she would speak out against the 2010 Olympics. The oppression triggered global media and the message: "No Olympics on Stolen Land."

When President Lyndon Johnson wanted to censor voices against the war in Vietnam, Johnson censored Buffy Sainte Marie and drove her out of the music business in the US. Who will sing those songs now? Who will sing for the men and women dying without purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will sing of the “Universal Soldier” dying because of the lies of politicians?

Racism has not been eradicated in the US; it has been covered up.

The US is a society built on the blood of Africans kidnapped and tortured in slavery. The US society is built on the genocide of American Indians. Entire Indian Nations were massacred and others driven far from their homelands. Texas, which continues its legacy of lynching of blacks and the genocide of Native Americans with the death penalty and executions, is a state where racism and hate crimes grow like fungus. California and Texas have the largest number of hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There are 84 hate groups in California and 66 in Texas. The region with the largest number of hate groups is the Deep South.

Hate crimes continued on and around Indian lands in this decade, with beatings and murders of Native Americans, the targeting of American Indians by police officers in bordertowns and the targeting of American Indian women as victims of crimes. In the Deep South in 2009, arrests continued for cross burnings at the homes of blacks. There were arrests for hate speech and the exposure of a justice of the peace that refused to marry an interracial couple.

Knowledge is power. On Christmas Day, Showtime broadcast the movie, “The Great Debaters,” the true story of a black debate team from Marshall, Texas, in northeast Texas, that debated Harvard in the 1930s.

There is a powerful scene when the debate team arrives at the scene where a black man has just been lynched by a white mob. The team narrowly escapes an attack by the mob. It is this experience of witnessing the lynching and the man’s charred remains that ultimately leads to the debate team's victory.

The debate team teacher delivers this riveting advice: When one is slammed to the ground, again and again, get up again and never give up.

Send comments to brendanorrell@gmail.comBrenda Norrell began publishing Censored News after being censored and terminated by Indian Country Today in 2006. She has been a news reporter in Indian country for 27 years, serving as a staff writer for Navajo Times and Lakota newspapers and a stringer for AP and USA Today. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years.

Religious Persecution has been a Harsh Reality for My People Since The Illegal Occupation Of Our Home Land Began Back In 1492, Resulting in the loss of Our language and Our Traditional practices. Fact, The Federal Government Outlawed Our Religion in 1884. . . lasted until 1904. Then, they enriched the laws, and it lasted until The 1930's. In 1890 at a Place Called Wounded Knee Creek In South Dakota. A Group of Native Americans Gathered Together to Practice a Then New Form of Religion Called The Ghost Dance. The Federal Government Did Not Want Them To Do This, So, They Sent In The 7th Cavalry. They Then Divided The Women And Children On One Side And The Men On The Other Disarmed Them And They Shoot Them Down. They Massacred Over 250 Native Americans For Worshiping There Own Religion And To Add Even Further Insult, The United States Rewarded These Brave Soldiers 26 Congressional Medals Of Honor. That is The Highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. I Ask Each of You. . .What's So Brave About Killing Unarmed Women And Children??? Every Tribe Across America Has Had a Similar Story To Share, Such As The Bloody Island Massacre For The Pomo Nation Here In California. And So On. . .And So On. . . Although the American Indian Religious freedom act of 1978 removed some restrictions on our traditional practices, We Need to further insure that Our Religion is Respected. Today We Are Here to Ask That All Our Political Prisoners Be allowed to participate in their ceremonies that our people have been Practicing since the Beginning of Time. We need more legal guaranties for the protection of our sacred sites and our burials sites. The Federal bureau of prisons and the United States prison system must develop tolerance of the many different belief systems and change their closed minded ways towards the treatment of our political prisoners. It would be nice to see the united states of American; land of the free…home of the brave… Honor the international religious freedom act of 1998. The act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 27, 1998.

The use of the sacred pipe must be allowed into the prison system. The California state prison system is mandated to provide diverse religious and spiritual needs of all inmates. They are called chaplains, these chaplains provide counseling services, and they organize or coordinate religious services and are supposed to deliver “Requested” Religious Materials.

We Ask That All Correctional Facilities Across America Hire more Native American chaplains to help heal our political prisoners, This must be done. Intervention Can and Must be done by a Native American spiritual advisor such as a Traditional medicine man or woman.

More funding must also be provided for the building And Maintaining Our sweat lodges in each institution. These Nation to Nation implementation guidelines should govern the development of these plans and be embraced by Every and All Correctional Facilities Across the World.

This is a human rights violation and is a direct violation of the constitution and the bill of rights!!!

We all pray to the same GOD CALLED by different NAME. WE CALL HIM "WAKATANKA" "TUNKASILA"

“CREATOR” “Jesus” etc!

We Also Ask, When Will President Obama Free Our Nelson Mandela?? Leonard Peltier has been in jail for over 33 years For a Crime He Did Not Commit. (Free Leonard Peltier)

FACT, America has more inmates than any other nation in the world. The land of the free. Free for only the political Elite.

Very rarely do You see the rich going to jail for long prison sentences, only the poor! It’s a double standard of justice.

We need more educational and rehabilitation centers to help heal our people.

In closing. . .

Chief LAME DEER once said

BEFORE OUR WHITE BROTHERS CAME TO CIVILIZE US WE HAD NO JAILS. THEREFORE WE HAD NO CRIMINALS. YOU CANT HAVE CRIMINALS WITHOUT A JAIL. WE HAD NO LOCKS OR KEYS, AND SO WE HAD NO THIEVES. IF A PERSON WAS SO POOR THAT HE HAD NO HORSE, TIPI OR BLANKET, SOMEONE GAVE HIM THESE THINGS. WE WERE TOO UNCIVILIZED TO SET MUCH VALUE ON PERSONAL BELONGINGS. WE WANTED TO HAVE THINGS ONLY IN ORDER TO GIVE AWAY. WE HAD NO MONEY, AND THEREFORE A MANS WORTH COULDN’T BE MEASURED BY IT. WE HAD NO WRITTEN LAW, NO ATTORNEYS OR POLITICIANS, THEREFORE WE COULDN’T CHEAT. BUT NOW VISIBLE PROGRESS IS EVERYWHERE—JAILS ALL OVER THE PLACE AND WE KNOW THESE JAILS ARE FOR US INDIANS. WHAT A PITY THAT SO MANY OF US DON’T APPRECIATE THEM.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Happy Holidays from Leonard
Greetings and happy holidays. I hope this letter finds you all enjoying the spirit of the season with family and friends.

My August parole denial was appealed in short order. We are expecting a response to that appeal sometime very soon. It has occurred to me that the viciousness of this system knows no bounds, and so I believe strongly in the coming days we will hear of another loss, another denial. This one will be timed and intended specifically as a twisted Christmas present for me, such is the nature of those in charge. With no sense of balance, fairness, or decency, I await my own personal stocking stuffer.

We all know the so-called justice system of this country is more about revenge and retribution than finding true and just resolution. It doesn’t take into account the plight of the wrongfully convicted, nor does it allow flexibility as human endeavors always require. This system has always been about making money at the top, furthering careers in the middle, and forgetting those at the bottom.

Their reason for denying my parole is that I refuse to admit guilt and show remorse for the deaths of two FBI agents. I know the righteousness of my situation. I know what I did and didn’t do. I will never yield.

I also know what this country did and continues to do to me and many others. While they demand I make a false confession for the sake of my freedom, they show no remorse for the loss of much of my life, or the lives of Joe Stuntz and countless others they have murdered over the generations simply for being who they were. Those lives are meaningless when compared to their precious FBI, I guess. And now, some of the very ones responsible for the deaths and suffering of so many of my people, are peddling books and claiming to be a friend of the Indian. We’ve seen this before, and I’ll speak more about this soon.

I remain proud of what I have stood for and mindful of what real justice is. In this season of love and forgiveness, please say a prayer for all of those who never knew justice and others who have such difficulty in finding it still today.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Monday, December 21 2009, Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories- Protesters are bringing their anti-Olympic message with chants of “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”, “Get your torch off our land, we don’t want your Olympic scam” and “2010 Homes not 2010 Games” across Canada. In many instances, activists have successfully disrupted the Torch Relay, forcing delays and route cancellations, with at least four arrests associated with anti-Torch related actions.
Today, Six Nations community members have declared that the Olympic Torch will not pass through their territory. A Declaration by the Onkwehonwe (people) of the Grand River Territory states “This land is not conquered. We are not Canadian… We hereby affirm our peaceful opposition to the entry and progression of the 2010 Olympic torch into and through our territory.”
In the coming weeks, dissenters are also expected to converge in Kitchener, Calgary, Edmonton, Stratford, and Guelph.
In Toronto over 250 people took to the streets on December 17, blocking major intersections and forcing the cancellation of the Torch in parts of downtown Toronto. A banner dropped directly across the stage read “Gego Olympics Da-Te-Snoon Nishnaabe-Giing Ga-Gmooding” (“No Olympics on Stolen Native Land” in Anishinaabemowin). (Visit http://www.facebook.com/l/9c773;torontotorch.blogspot.com or email torchblock@gmail.com)
At least four communities in the province of Quebec have opposed the Torch Relay: Sept-Iles, Montreal, Kanahwake First Nations, and Quebec City. In Montreal, over 200 people converged and delayed the relay as well as the main ceremonies and concert. (Visit: http://www.facebook.com/l/9c773;www.amp-montreal.net). On October 30, over 400 people gathered to oppose the Torch Relay launch in Victoria. An Anti-Olympics Festival and Zombie March succeeded in disrupting the relay. Security personnel were forced to extinguish the torch, load it in a van, and reroute it.
Actions have also occurred in cities as diverse as Comox Valley, Kingston, Halifax, Ottawa, and St. John's. With the number of protesters equaling or exceeding spectators, dissatisfaction to the 2010 Winter Olympics is growing across Canada. According to a November 2009 Angus-Reid poll, over 30% of B.C. residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact and almost 40% of residents support protesters.
Protesters note that the Olympics are not simply about the athletes; rather the corporate Games are leaving a legacy of displacement, militarization, and repression. Public funds invested by all levels of government are nearing $7 billion. According to the Olympic Resistance Network, “While Olympic corporate sponsors are getting bailed out, Indigenous lands are being stolen, people are becoming homeless, thousands are losing their jobs and access to public services, the environment is being destroyed, and civil liberties are being eroded with almost a billion dollars sunk into surveillance. The negative Olympic legacy is turning into an anti-Olympic legacy of resistance across the country.”
Social justice activists also believe that the Olympic Torch is a $25 million propaganda tool for corporate sponsors who have some of the worst social and environmental practices. The Royal Bank of Canada has been under fire for its financing of the environmentally devastating Alberta Tar Sands, while Coca Cola has been responsible for massive depletion of groundwater and toxic waste pollution in India.

Olympic torch relay rejigged amid protest, but modified Six Nations show goes onhttp://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/091221/national/oly_torch_relay
By Susanna Kelley, The Canadian Press
SIX NATIONS INDIAN RESERVE, Ont. - The Olympic torch's journey across Canada was forced yet again to take a detour in the face of aboriginal opposition to the Games, with an Ontario First Nation rerouting its relay amid a protest from a splinter group in the community.
While the torch still made an appearance on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford in southern Ontario, the original plan to run the flame through the reserve - supported by the elected band council - was altered at the 11th hour.
Instead, the torch was taken directly to a bingo hall on the reserve for a celebration during which some two dozen torchbearers circled the hall with the flame.

TUCSON -- Prolific American Indian writer, scholar and activist Ward Churchill visited Tucson on Friday night, bringing with him a new meaning to the word “occupation.”
Delivering a talk entitled “Apartheid in America: Surviving Occupation in O'odham Lands,”
Professor Churchill Spoke to a full hall at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson about the U.S. government's history of conquest, genocide and occupation of traditional Indian territory.
As a sort of ominous beginning to his talk, Mr. Churchill opened his remarks by saying, “It's an honor to be here; it's always an honor to be anywhere in North America, on Native land.”
Churchill discussed the legitimacy of the “claimed territory” of the United States as “the difference between a 'claim' and a 'reality',” which, he said, are not the same thing. “The United States 'claims' many things,” Churchill said. “Those things have to be interrogated because a 'claim' is not the same as the reality. The United States claims indigenous land as its own, over which it asserts jurisdiction, enforces its own rules -- on everyone.”
Professor Churchill recalled watching on TV a public address in 1990 by former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush. “(Bush) actually gave a very accurate assessment of international legal obligation, Churchill said. “'Illegally occupied territory,' (Bush) said, 'must be restored to its rightful owners; legitimate governments,' (Bush) said, 'must be re-established in place (of) those that had been usurped; and those who engage in lawless aggression in the occupation of other people's property and assert their authority over them by armed force had to be put back in line with law using any means necessary.'”
Churchill said he jumped up and started cheering at Bush's remarks, which struck him as an ironic rationale laid out by a modern American head of state for why the U.S. must give back the lands it took by force; the lands, Churchill said, which it continues to occupy illegally.
Throughout much of his talk Mr. Churchill made connections between the South African Apartheid regime (1948-1994), the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands (1948-present), and Nazi Germany's conquest of Western Europe before and during World War Two. He relentlessly tied back all of them as each following the U.S. example of its own conquest of the Americas and extermination of the indigenous populations over the past several hundred years.
A representative of the traditional O'odham ceremony leaders and the founder of the O'odham VOICE Against the Wall, Ofelia Rivas shared the stage with Professor Churchill, speaking about, in her view, one of the main problems with settler relations with indigenous people in America: “Since the very beginning of the intrusion of our people we haven't had any dialogue. “We weren't at that table when (the U.S.) made that international border. We were not considered to be human. I have to go back to that point because that's the point where we begin as O'odham people. When we begin to remember those things, then maybe we can begin to understand what it means to O'odham people.”
“When you start to feel that kind of compassion for human beings – not because they are different and because they have the same mindset as you and because they support the same ideas as you – then maybe we can change things.”

Ward Churchill has written over twenty books on Native human rights, American foreign policy, and the repression of political dissent in America. According to the website of the University of Colorado at Boulder's department of Ethnic Studies, of which Churchill is a former Chair, Churchill served as a delegate to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations (as a Justice/Rapporteur for the 1993 International People's Tribunal on the Rights of Indigenous, an advocate/prosecutor of the First Nations International Tribunal for the Chiefs of Ontario, and is the recipient of various writing awards. It also states he is a member of the Colorado chapter Governing Council of the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Churchill's and Rivas's talk was sponsored by Dry River Radical Resource Center and the Earth First! Journal.

US Undermines Climate Talks with Bullying Tactics and Backroom Deals
Civil Society Denounces U.S. Plan for Fast-Tracking Warming, Worsening Humanitarian Crisis, and Fueling Ecological Collapse
COPENHAGEN --- Despite President Obama's assurances of progress today at the UN Climate Talks, the negotiations continue into the early morning as civil society leaders are left out of the sessions at the Bella Center and protesters gather outside. "For the U.S., which is the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases, to come to Copenhagen and try to strong arm the world into accepting a phony accord that will do nothing to prevent climate catastrophe is beyond irresponsible; it is criminal." said John Peck, Executive Director of Family Farm Defenders and member of Via Campesina. Read more at http://www.ienearth.org/

Indigenous Leaders at the Front Line of Climate Change, at the Front of the Historic Climate March in CopenhagenOver 100,000 people marched in Copenhagen calling on world leaders to agree to a just climate policy. Leading the march was a delegation of indigenous leaders from communities on the front lines of climate change. Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat and Elizabeth Press speak to indigenous activists at the march and at the Danish National Museum. Read more at http://www.ienearth.org/
and watch Democracy Now! video coverage at http://www.democracynow.org/

Copenhagen Summit: 'Nopenhagen' compared to Holocaust, Obama to SatanCopenhagen: A lesson in geopoliticsBy Joanna KakissisAljazeera
The Copenhagen Accord was agreed by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa
After two weeks of international deadlock and an all-night marathon negotiating session that produced a thin and toothless accord, the biggest climate talks in history devolved from "Hopenhagen" to "Nopenhagen". The Copenhagen Accord - brokered at the last minute by Barack Obama, the US president, with China, India, Brazil and South Africa - did not receive universal support from the 193 countries participating in the climate summit.
The accord, which gutted a comprehensive agreement to pay poor countries to protect their forests, since the mass cutting of trees accounts for 20 per cent of global emissions, is not binding and does not have a set date for capping carbon emissions.
It provoked reactions from fury to despair.
Lumumba Stanislaus Dia-ping, Sudan's chief negotiator, compared it to the Holocaust, while Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, referenced the sulfur of hell and suggested that Obama was Satan. Ian Fry of Tuvalu, the drowning island-nation that has become the poster country for the perils of rising sea levels, likened the accord to "being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future". But the climate fund did not win the trust of all developing countries, some of whom say the money is not nearly enough. ... Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, declared that rich countries owe poor countries billions of dollars in "climate reparations" and demanded the creation of a "climate change tribunal" for countries who do not stop polluting. Read article:http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/climatesos/2009/12/2009122064859919604.html

By Tony GonzalesAIM WestCOPENHAGEN -- As I am making preparations to head for home to the Bay Area, I am sending you this final Declaration that came from the KlimaforumO9 in Copenhagen, from the large group of NGOs attending the UNFCCC separate from the Government representatives meeting at the Bella Center. Please post the document.I must say that I am not pleased at all with the final outcome of the text, particularly where Indigenous peoples were inserted deep in page 6, beginning with "Our Demands."Although I did attempt to work as close I could with the declaration team to include Indigenous Peoples somewhere after the Preamble and to insert the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples -- both to secure the rights of all Indigenous Peoples, and to gain the NGO's support for it to function as a stop gap to the continued and future destruction of Mother Earth that contributes toward the unregulated emissions and increasing temperatures -- evidently it was to no avail.What we need is our own document and for it to stand on its own. For this to occur we will need the support from our brothers and sisters, friends, allies and supporters to join with the American Indian Movement International Conference to be held in San Francisco, California during the week of November 22-26, 2010. This should be just prior to the next COP-16 in Mexico City, November 29th until December 10, 2010.Hopefully we will develop a more strategy plan that will effectuate the necessary systems change that will assert the rights of Indigenous Peoples, and take that to Mexico City to be adopted both by all NGO's, and Governments into their final document. I will elaborate further on this project/plan when I return to San Francisco later during this week. All is not lost, we are still hopeful, and coming into our element! Until then, to all my relations.Tony GonzalesAIM-WEST Directoreltonyg@earthlink.nethttp://censored-news.blogspot.com/2009/12/peoples-declaration-from-copenhagen.htmlorhttp://www.klimaforum09.org/IMG/pdf/A_People_s_Declaration_from_Klimaforum09_-_ultimate_version.pdf

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Some Alaska Natives who died at the boarding school or hospital in Tacoma, Wash., were buried in unmarked graves.They were called Eskimos or Alaska Indians when they left their homes to go to the Indian school or hospital on Puyallup lands in the early 20th century.Of the sick, many died before they arrived at the Washington reservation. If they were children, they often didn't know why they were being taken from their families.Those that survived are now growing old and dying, and the Puyallup tribe is trying to record their stories before it's too late."All we have are death certificates or official correspondences, not personal views," said Amber Santiago, who works with the tribe's historic preservation department. "We just have the white people's perspective. "Starting in the 1860s, Natives from Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana and Alaska came to Puyallup Indian Reservation to attend Cushman Indian School.. In the 1920s, the school was converted to a regional hospital that treated Natives up until the 1960s.While students and patients came from throughout the Northwest, there is only one living member of the Puyallup tribe who went to the school or hospital. That's why Santiago is searching for anyone who can tell her more about what happened there."We're trying to reclaim our own history," said Santiago, whose mother was taken from Montana's Flathead Reservation at age 10 to be treated at the hospital.All Santiago has to go on so far are some death certificates and interviews with about 20 eyewitnesses. There are many missing pieces to the story of what went on there, but none of them is bigger than what happened to the Alaskans."Everyone we talked about said 'the Alaskans, the Alaskans' . . . It's the only group that people mention over and over again, it's the common thread through all the interviews," Santiago said. "I really wonder about the Alaskans, since there were so many of them, what their stories are."But so far, Santiago has yet to find a single Alaska Native to interview."It's the last state — the missing link," she said.Santiago said that so far she's heard stories both good and bad about what it was like at Cushman. But for many it was a place of homesickness, confusion or illness, especially for the children that were there. One man came to the hospital to get his tonsils out as a child and ended up staying for years."When his parents came to pick him up he didn't know who they were," Santiago said.Perhaps because it was a scary or lonely experience, "the majority of people haven't talked about it since they left there," Santiago said. Now that they're in their 70s, 80s or 90s, "they don't mind talking now."In the five-story hospital, the first two floors were for tuberculosis patients. A nurse that worked there remembered about 200 to 300 patients in that ward at a time, the majority from Alaska.Many Alaskans died on Puyallup lands. Most of the other tribal members were sent back to their families when they died, but Alaska Natives were usually buried near the hospital, unattended by friends or relatives, without a headstone to name them.One man Santiago spoke to stayed in a hospital room overlooking the cemetery. Every week, he said, he would see "a grave-digger and a man in black (a priest), just burying, burying.""He said it was known they were Alaskan Indians," Santiago said.

Today, the cemetery has only Puyallup tribal members and what Santiago assumes are the graves of the Alaskans who died at the hospital.About five years ago the tribe purchased a ground-penetrating radar to find the unmarked graves. Since the buildings were demolished in 2003, the cemetery is all that is left of Cushman Indian School and Hospital.The tribe is hoping to compile an oral record of the school in a memoir, and eventually build a museum about the history of the area."It's just a part of history that not a lot of people know about," Santiago said.Santiago said that the Puyallup Tribe would like to hear from anyone who has a story about Cushman Indian School or Cushman Indian Hospital, or St. George's Indian Boarding School in the Fife/Milton area from the 1880s to 1930s. That may not be someone who attended but even their grandchild or friend."We want to piece together the story," Santiago said.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Congratulations to all the warriors for the land, forests, four-legged, two-legged, winged ones, fishes, Mother Earth and humanity, in Copenhagen, for a labor of love well done!Photo courtesy Clayton George Thomas-Muller "UNFCC COP15 Chillin with Naomi Klein during Reclaim Power"

Border Patrol agents beat and murder people at the southern and northern borders. Now, Canadian science fiction author Dr. Peter Watts has been beaten and jailed at the northern border. In 2008, Canadian border guards put Mohawk Nation News publisher Kahentinetha Horn in a stresshold and induced a heart attack. (Photo on right) Recently, US border agents detained and harassed Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman at the northern border, questioning her about speaking out against the 2010 Olympics. Currently, under the Obama administration, the abuse by US Border Patrol agents/Homeland Security of O'odham in Arizona and other Indigenous Peoples at the southern border has escalated. --Censored News

The Regime's Heroic Border Guards In ActionWilliam GriggFriday, December 11, 2009Crossing the border of a totalitarian state — in either direction — is an experience fraught with visceral anxiety. Finding himself in the unwanted company of humorless, heavily armed goons of dubious competence and abysmal intelligence, the traveler is vividly aware that he can be arrested, imprisoned, beaten or even shot at whim.The best thing to do in such circumstances, travelers are told, is to assume a posture of utter servility, meekly and quietly enduring whatever indignity inflicted on them until they are safely through the border checkpoint. Judging by the recent behavior of the valiant cadres of the heroic Border Guards Directorate, it becomes clear that the U.S. is rapidly descending into undisguised totalitarianism. Last Tuesday (December 8), Dr. Peter Watts, a Hugo-nominated science fiction author from Toronto, was severely beaten, pepper-sprayed, arrested, interrogated, and otherwise abused by Border Patrol agents."If you buy into the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, there must be a parallel universe in which I crossed the US/Canadian border without incident last Tuesday," writes Dr. Watts."In some other dimension, I was not waved over by a cluster of border guards who swarmed my car like army ants for no apparent reason; or perhaps they did, and I simply kept my eyes downcast and refrained from asking questions.""Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on," Dr. Watts continues: "I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, sh*t-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three f*****g hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my f****g paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario's first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.""In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of> having been punched in the face," he concludes. "But that is not this universe." In the universe we're sentenced to live in, Dr. Watts, like many, many other innocent people, has been charged with "assaulting" the sacred personage of a federal officer for the offense of being on the receiving end of a criminal assault by that officer and his cohorts (remember, the bold and brave "men" in law enforcement always operate in packs). This kind of arbitrary, lawless violence can occur anytime anyone — including a U.S. citizen — encounters the Border Patrol.And the danger is not limited to the border: Witness the experience of Pastor Steven Anderson of Tempe, Arizona, who was tased, beaten, and arrested by Border Patrol agents at a checkpoint set up dozens of miles inside the southern border with Mexico. Iris Cooper of Patagonia, Arizona recently had an unpleasant — if less violent — run-in with the Border Patrol. While driving to school at the Pima Medical Institute in Tucson, she realized that she had forgotten her books. Spying a Border Patrol checkpoint in the near distance, Cooper decided to take the risk of turning around to retrieve her books, knowing that this action might provoke suspicion.Stop and think about what it says about our circumstances that avoiding a warrantless checkpoint is considered "probable cause" for the purpose of conducting a search. Sure enough, Border Patrol agents and police pursued and stopped Cooper. She was pulled from her car, handcuffed, and detained for a half an hour while a K-9 unit conducted a warrantless search of her vehicle. Despite being handcuffed and forbidden to leave, Cooper was told that she wasn't under arrest. The handcuffs, she was told, were "part of the procedure." This was a lie, of course: An arrest occurs any time a citizen is detained by any law enforcement officer. This includes traffic stops.According to the Border Patrol, the increasingly theoretical protections offered by the Fourth Amendment are subject to "exceptions" for the purpose of border enforcement. This creates what some have called a "Constitution-free zone" within a 100-mile-wide strip surrounding the continental U.S. As the ACLU has pointed out, two-thirds of the U.S. population resides within that formal "Constitution-free zone." As I've noted before, the border enforcement regime supposedly intended to keep foreigners out can also be used to pen us in. Many conservatives — including some who apparently despise foreigners more than they cherish freedom — forgot that principle during the reign of Bush the Dumber. Perhaps their perspective will change now that Barack the Blessed is on the throne, and the walls are closing in.WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE To subscribe to this group, send an email to:wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Copenhagen: A lesson in geopoliticsBy Joanna Kakissis AljazeeraThe Copenhagen Accord was agreed by the US, China, India, Brazil and South AfricaAfter two weeks of international deadlock and an all-night marathon negotiating session that produced a thin and toothless accord, the biggest climate talks in history devolved from "Hopenhagen" to "Nopenhagen". The Copenhagen Accord - brokered at the last minute by Barack Obama, the US president, with China, India, Brazil and South Africa - did not receive universal support from the 193 countries participating in the climate summit.The accord, which gutted a comprehensive agreement to pay poor countries to protect their forests, since the mass cutting of trees accounts for 20 per cent of global emissions, is not binding and does not have a set date for capping carbon emissions.It provoked reactions from fury to despair.Lumumba Stanislaus Dia-ping, Sudan's chief negotiator, compared it to the Holocaust, while Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, referenced the sulfur of hell and suggested that Obama was Satan. Ian Fry of Tuvalu, the drowning island-nation that has become the poster country for the perils of rising sea levels, likened the accord to "being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future". But the climate fund did not win the trust of all developing countries, some of whom say the money is not nearly enough. ... Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, declared that rich countries owe poor countries billions of dollars in "climate reparations" and demanded the creation of a "climate change tribunal" for countries who do not stop polluting. Read article:http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/climatesos/2009/12/2009122064859919604.html

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The Bureau of Indian Affairs has withdrawn its biological assessment for a proposed power plant in northwestern New Mexico, saying it has "significant concerns" about the impact of mercury and selenium on two endangered fish species in the San Juan River. BIA Director Jerry Gidner, in a letter Thursday to Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Regional Director Benjamin Tuggle, said the decision will allow more time for coordination between Tuggle's staff, the BIA and the Environmental Protection Agency. It was the second review of federal decisions for the $3 billion coal-fired Desert Rock Energy Project on the Navajo Nation. In September, the Environmental Appeals Board in part granted a request by regional EPA officials who wanted to review parts of an air permit issued last year.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Photos by Ben Powless, 23-year-old Mohawk from Six Nations, Ontario. The photos include Tom Goldtooth, director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, in photo one, Canadian delegations to halt the Tar Sands and Jihan Gearon of the Indigenous Environmental Network in photo four.

www.uruknet.infoEVER WONDER WHERE SOME OF THE BANK BAILOUT MONEY CAME FROM? According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, it came from the Afghan opium trade. Foreign Policy in Focus has a fascinating article analyzing the recent UNODC study on the drug trade, entitled "Addiction, Crime, and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium."While the original study headlines the role of the Taliban in the Afghan opium trade, the FPF article notes that buried deep in the study is the admission that the Taliban receives less than 15% of its funding from drugs and that it likely only benefits from 4% of the Afghan drug trade. Poppy farmers, for instance, take about 21% of the drug trade's earnings. And the rest?Read more:http://www.williambowles.info/iraq/uruk/2009/1209/uruk_151209.html

Media StatementHADA'A SIDI TO FIGHT PEABODY WESTERN LEASE AMENDMENT Censored Newshttp://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.comThe Navajo Nation Council will hold a work session on Monday, December 21st, and then hold a vote the next day, on whether to approve amendments to a Peabody Western Coal Company mining lease. Hadada'a sidi, a Navajo grassroots reform organization, opposes the amendments because there is insufficient public information on its fairness and how it will benefit the Navajo Nation, and the public has not been adequately notified and involved. As is often the case, we aren't seeing transparency and inclusion in the legislative process. There are problems with the amendment: For example, Peabody Coal promoters promised the people of the Black Mesa and Kayenta areas that the company will help with basic community needs. They include water, electricity, roads and other infrastructure items. Given that Navajo society is still largely oral, Navajo communities and voters took the coal company representatives at their word and approved leases based on promises for assistance. However such promises are not legally enforceable, and they were not kept. While the central government may get the benefit of coal leasing, the affected communities did not. It is up to Western Agency Navajo Nation Council delegates to vote down any continuation of leasing until that is addressed.Read statement:http://censored-news.blogspot.com/2009/12/hadaa-sidi-to-fight-peabody-western.html

COPENHAGEN -- So how much is 100 billion dollars? Evo Morales stated if the USA wanted to “save humanity” not a portion of humanity (half of humanity). Hugo Chavez praised Morales for being re-elected recently and with 60 percent plus vote cast for the first indigenous leader. World leaders want more money from the US, the funds spent on the war were put in the sun light.ALBA hosted an event with dancing and singing and speeches by Latin American leaders Cuba – Raul Castro sent a representative. The energy of Chavez' delivery is comparable to Obama. Hugo Chavez has a class act of his own with a thundering voice. People cheered and the big screen vibrated with all the energy at the ALBA event.NGO’s noted their input is the foundation to future meetings, action at the local community level is important. Presentations at the KIMA Forum was not over-shadowed by the influx of world leaders gathered in Copenhagen -- world class presenters came in force and delivered. Next stop Mexico City. As for Friends of the Earth scheduled to present at main stage at the Bela Center, it was canceled due to their involvement in actions on the streets.Throughout Copenhagen protesting carried into the night with Politi’s (police) facing off with warriors of street and environment, all people arrested have passports taken away. Am certain they will spend more time in Demark. As noted 2/3 of the 9,000 politi force have been on duty for the event and climate change has a whole new meaning for men detained.As noted depending on which side of the street you are on, it is agreed Copenhagen did not produce an agreement riding on the wings of many prayers. Thus 100 billion could buy plenty of milk -- milk before meat Copenhagen is a start.We tried and gave our 'bestes' with 'HOPENHAGEN--Earl TulleyPhotos by Earl Tulley: ALBA Event Hugo Chavez at the mic with South American Leaders on the stage; Arctic Peoples gathering plenty of great Arctic food and speakers; the mail man in the snow; North and South America meet - making plans for Mexico City.

Chairman Brandon Sazue from Crow Creek & Mo Brings Plenty, Oglala Lakota will be on Native America Calling on Tuesday, December 23rdNative America Calling Airs LiveMonday - Friday, 1-2pm Easternhttp://www.nativeamericacalling.com/Listen to Tiokasin Ghosthorse’s First Voices Indigenous Radio show from yesterday morning (December 17th)Crow Creek section of the interview can be heard at the last 18 minutes or so.www.firstvoicesindigenousradio.org/program_archives.htmlWill post more relevant info and another update regarding what steps they are taking later this evening.For more info, visit our website at:NDN Newshttp://www.ndnnews.com/NDN News is a grassroots organization which acts as an information hub and resource for many issues in Indian Country. We are dedicated to providing information featuring headline stories, on-going issues, action alerts, and upcoming events.

Support from Alaska InterTribal Council:On December 3, 2009 the Internal Revenue Service auctioned off 7100acres located on Crow Creek Sioux Tribal land. The land is owned byCrow Creek Tribal Farms, Inc. a Tribal corporation and distinct legalentity from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. According to the recent motionfor temporary restraining order, filed by the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe,the IRS seized and auctioned the land to recover $3,123,789.73 dollarsin unpaid employment taxes. The document states, Because of erroneoustax advice received from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Crow CreekSioux Tribe became delinquent in the payment of employment taxescollected by the IRS beginning in 2003. The BIA had informed the Tribethat, because it was a federally recognized Tribe, it was notnecessary to pay federal employment taxes.

The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is consistently documented as one of thepoorest Reservations in the Nation, with 78% of their members livingbelow the poverty line. This action by the IRS, could ultimatelyeliminate 20% of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribes Reservation lands & couldultimately set a precedence, allowing the continual land grab onTribal Lands.

Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Chairman Brandon Sazue has received lots of support from other tribes for his protest of the IRS auctioning off 7,100 acres of his tribe's land, including from a small tribe in California trying desperately to hold on to a tiny parcel of land that is its only real estate.The California Valley Miwok Tribe sent a letter to Sazue voicing their support for him and his tribe as its leaders prepare to barricade themselves for the second time on the tribe's only real estate, one-and-a-half acres housing the tribal office in Stockton, Calif., that is in a bank foreclosure. Read article:http://www.argusleader.com/article/20091218/NEWS/912180316/1003/BUSINESS

COPENHAGEN -- Hugo Chaves and Evo Morales are putting it all on the table. Hugo spoke of a ghost in the room referring to a Copenhagen Agreement which had and was drafted before the end of Cope 15. Morales spoke of taking part in actions with some of the activists, then said after the decade of Indigenous Peoples was secured. But asked what was accomplished thereafter. Morales met with Indigenous participants and said it is the people who are the movers and that capitalism is not the answer nor the solution.

In regards to actions within the Bela Center, a group of NGO's staged a walk out. Police/security escorted them through the building. They joined protesters outside. Some participants (protesters) re-entered the Bela Center after asking for assistance from the Bolivian government. They noted it was cold out side -- it is snowing -- Denmark weather is cold.Who is here? It is quite easy to see statesmen or women making their presence and their role could be determined by the trail of press core members following them as they make their way through the crowd. Senator Kerry entered with a parade of cameras. The common person (NGO) enters the center after clearing a number (of many) security check points -- going to confession should be a breeze for those who need to get straight now after going through "hopenhagen" security.

The word on the floor is that there will be no agree, no paper, and if there is one it will not be binding. The lady heading Cop15 stepped down to make way for Denmark to send her head of state (Denmark) INFORMALLY she is making way for a designated hitter or go-to-man. This person will be chairing the final day of Cop15. Let's see which head of state will be at the mic in the morning ...For the last two days passes are cut from 1,500 NGOs to 1,000 NGOs and only 12 NGOs will enter Bela Center. Others will be at other side events -- Indigenous NGOs are cut to 13-16, we were informed this evening.We all know the world is watching and praying for our successful journey. Therefore participating in protests is not on the mind of many -- our Greenland and Arctic supporters are with us each step of the way.

That be all for now -- thanks BRENDA NORRELL for posting our notes

(Special thanks to my longtime friend Earl Tulley for sending these notes and photos from Copenhagen. Earl has been my friend since I moved to the Navajo Nation in 1979. Along with the late Leroy Jackson, Navajo, he began the modernday movement to protect the Navajos' Chuska Mountain from clearcut logging, which gave birth to a new Native environmental movement. We remember today Leroy Jackson who died in this labor of love. -- Brenda Norrell, Censored News)

Photos by Earl Tulley: Evo Morales is in photo one. Earl Tulley appears on the right in photo three.

Notes from CopenhagenBy Earl Tulley, Navajo from Blue Gap, ArizonaDecember 16, 2009Censored Newshttp://www.bsnorell.blogspot.com"Made it into the center and let me tell you there are actions taking place and there is the police presence of the total number of Danish police, 2/3 are on call and the sheer number is a showcase in and around town. As to how things work with the delegations from nations it is that if one nation walks out, the meetings are shut down. The Africa Nation led the walk out two days ago and things just came to stop.Will action or resolution come forth from the Cop15, not too sure but the NGO's are networking and keeping issues on the front table. We came early to ensure we entered the building, others may not be here because of Metros being shut down and actions (protests) taking place. Our mission here is to put 'No Nuke' on the discussion table.Yesterday we presented a document to Prince Albert II of Monaco, who was present at the conference hosted by the Green Landers (Arctic folks) and were able to have some face time. Things are 'bout as good as it can be and we are behaving. Forty days in jail is steep for this old man, but could handle forty days sitting at the table discussion.The heads of state will be here today, which is perhaps the reason for step up in security. The christian house area was shut down yesterday due to the protest at the entrance of the compound of the house.--Earl TulleyRead more: Earl Tulley, Navajo, Notes from Copenhagen Ihttp://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2009/12/earl-tulley-navajo-notes-from.html

North American Indigenous Peoples Demand More in CopenhagenBy Indigenous Environmental Network

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – As the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) winds down, thousands of people marched in the streets today to “reclaim power” from the UN process they say is not good enough. Indigenous Peoples led a march from inside the official venue of the climate negotiations, to stand in solidarity with the rest of civil society in demanding climate justice.

Over the past two weeks, indigenous peoples have been working to ensure all potential climate policies and actions that come out of the negotiations, ensure recognition of and respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities. Specifically, indigenous peoples have lobbied for the incorporation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into climate policy. Although some would see the mention of the UNDRIP in the text of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) a small success, many feel it is a slap in the face of indigenous peoples.

“Indigenous peoples rights are mentioned once in the form of a recommendation for nation states to consider, but not as a requirement,” explains Alberto Saldamando of the International Indigenous Treaty Council (IITC). “But ensuring basic human rights for the worlds populations who are most affected by climate change should not be voluntary. It is a matter of obligation.”

“It’s a sad situation that world leaders representing industrialized society have lost their understanding of the sacredness of Mother Earth,” adds Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN). “Before we can achieve global action, there needs to be international awareness of why we are really here. We marched out in support of our brother, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, and his demand that the rights of Mother Earth be recognized in the negotiating text here in Copenhagen.”

“Coming into these negotiations, I was optimistic about our world leaders coming together to solve this global problem,” says Nikke Alex, a Navajo youth who works for the Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC) in the southwest United States. “But now I see the health of our people and Mother Earth are not central to their agenda. Their goal is to use the climate crisis to make profit. The people who are really solving climate change are those at the grassroots level, working to create more sustainable societies.”

The IEN delegation brought a delegation of 21 Indigenous Peoples from North America affected by fossil fuel development. They came to call out false solutions like clean coal technology, nuclear power, and the carbon market. Over the past two weeks, the IEN delegation has used a variety of tactics to push for strong targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and demand effective, fair and equitable methods to address the climate issue.The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a United States-based non-governmental (Indigenous) organization formed in 1990 addressing environmental and economic justice challenges. IEN is a network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous communities and Nations towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice, and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions. Since 1998, IEN has been working on issues of climate change and global warming. IEN is one of the leading organizations/networks within the U.S. environmental justice movement involved in climate change policy - locally, nationally and globally.

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About Censored News

Censored News is published by Brenda Norrell, a journalist in Indian country for 35 years. Norrell created Censored News after she was censored and terminated as a staff reporter at Indian Country Today in 2006. Norrell has been a journalist in Indian country for 35 years. She began as a reporter at Navajo Times during the 18 years that she lived on the Navajo Nation. She was a stringer for AP and USA Today and later traveled with the Zapatistas through Mexico. She has been blacklisted by all the paying media for 11 years. Now in its 11th year with more than 16 million page views, Censored News has no ads, grants or revenues. Contact brendanorrell@gmail.com

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The Rose of Love

"O FRIEND! In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold." --Baha'u'llah, Baha'i Faith